UK Thunderball Jackpot Analysis

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One of the most popular and played jackpots around the world is the UK Thunderball. It is the second most popular lottery in the UK, after the UK National Lottery. Within this UK Thunderball jackpot analysis, we take a look at the lottery game that is available at local betting terminals and also at many online lottery sites. Find out more below.

UK Thunderball Jackpot Analysis: An Introduction

The first ever UK Thunderball was hosted in 1999. That means that it is over 20 years old and has established itself as a recognizable lottery, playing every Saturday for the past 20+ years. In today’s times, the UK Thunderball is played four times per week. Namely, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 20:00 GMT.

The UK Thunderball is operated by Camelot and is certainly one of the best lotteries to play in the world. The gameplay itself consists of 5 primary numbers and a 6^th ball, called the Thunderball. It is somewhat similar to the US Powerball, which also has 5 balls and a 6^th Powerball. The main separation between the two is that the Powerball has a fantastic jackpot amount. As for the UK Thunderball, it is a fixed lottery, meaning that the jackpot will never change. Progressive jackpots, such as the US Powerball, will keep on growing in size until it is eventually won. The UK Thunderball, a fixed jackpot, does not grow but has a guaranteed fixed rate each week. To sum up, progressives are far larger than fixed jackpots but both contain massive life-changing prizes.

In specific, the Thunderball jackpot prize will always be £500,000. In Euros, that’s about €570,000 and in US Dollars it is about $645,000. This is the definition of a fixed lottery. A progressive, on the other hand, such as the US Powerball, starts off at $40,000,000 and grows by $10 million each week that there isn’t a winner. The benefits are way larger for the progressive US Powerball, but it is only hosted twice as week. As for the UK Thunderball, draws are picked four times!

UK Thunderball History

The first ever UK Thunderball draw took place on June 12, 1999, and was worth £250,000. At first, the UK Thunderball was only a Saturday lottery, however, in October 2002, the draw duplicated to also be hosted on Wednesday. Thus, the first ever Wednesday draw took place on the 23^rd of October 2002.

With the added Wednesday draw, the UK Thunderball grew in popularity ten-fold, leading to some innovative changes. Thanks to the development in technology, the Smartplay Halogen II draw machines were introduced in 2009. These would give players the option to pick and claim their lottery tickets at betting terminals without having to even speak to a service agent. A few months after this introduction, the Thunderball went through some massive changes.

May 2010 saw the Thunderball double the jackpot amount from £250,000 to £500,000 for winning the ultimate lottery prize. The other change that occurred was that the number of numbers changed from 34 to 39, making it slightly more difficult. With the introduction of the Thunderball, players could win by matching their Thunderball with the actual Thunderball. This would amount to a small consolation prize. After introducing these innovations, the UK Thunderball went on to add a third day, Thunderball Friday.

In 2018, the UK Thunderball took their final step towards the growth of the Thunderball, adding Tuesday to the list of days hosting Thunderball. That means over 50% of the days of a week are Thunderball days. To date, there is not a single lottery that has more weekly draws than the UK Thunderball. This adds to the popularity and excitement around the UK lottery.

How to Play UK Thunderball

If you want to try out the UK Thunderball, it is very easy to learn. At the moment of writing, a ticket costs £1. This is fairly decent in comparison to other popular lotteries. You may want to take a look at our online jackpot sites for further reference of which lottery sites will have the jackpot. Alternatively, you can always go to the top of this page to check out our lottery agents that you can play the UK Thunderball at. The good news is that you do not even need to live in the UK to play!

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Lottery prizes range from as little as £3 to a maximum of £500,000, the lottery jackpot. You are tasked with selecting 5 primary numbers and a 6^th Thunderball. The aim here is to choose the primary numbers from 1-39 and the Thunderball from 1-14. There is also a Lucky Dip, which is a RNG (random number generator) that will create your ticket for you.

When playing the UK Thunderball, you can choose up to 10 pay slips that contain 7 lines each at a time. This will result in 70 different tickets if you purchase all of them to the maximum. After purchasing, keep an eye out for your tickets and the numbers of the draw.

Thunderball Syndicate Betting

If you want to join lottery syndicates to play the Thunderball, you can do that as well. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, syndicate betting is when you purchase a share in a group of other players, and you all have a better chance of winning.

The good thing about the UK Thunderball is that it’s so easy to become part of a lottery syndicate. There’s a setting online which will put you in a group and credit you after the draw has taken place. It’s not always going to be that straightforward though.

UK Thunderball Jackpot Analysis

There are 5 numbers that land plus the 6^th Thunderball. If you are successful in picking all the numbers, you will win the maximum £500,000 lottery prize. If you fail to pick the Thunderball, but all the others are correct, you will receive £5,000 for your efforts.

When you’ve got four correct numbers with the Thunderball, you will be the winner of £250. Without the Thunderball, four primary game picks will get you £100. Predicting three numbers plus the Thunderball will result in a pay-out of £20 whilst without the Thunderball, the pay-out is halved to £10.

Two numbers plus the Thunderball will also be valued at £10 with only having one number plus the Thunderball only going to pay £5. Finally, having only the Thunderball will result in a pay-out of £3.

Banking

The payment for the UK Thunderball is rather unique. Ultimately, it depends if you are living in the UK or not. If you are, you can choose to get paid an annuity payment installment or a lump sum. However, if you are not in the UK, the only option to payment is the £500,000 lump sum.

We would recommend players in the UK to take the annuity payment installment scheme. That way, you can rest assured that the lottery will pay out the remainder of the prize over the next 20-30 years.

The Bottom Line

Thus, to conclude this UK Thunderball jackpot analysis, we hope that you have been impressed with the lottery. It is hosted a record number of times per week, contributing to its worldwide recognition. The lottery is certainly not a scam and has been around for ages, making it very reliable and trustworthy.

If you head on over to our jackpot games, you will find similar lotteries with massive prizes. These can be either fixed or progressive. On top of that, we have a massive portfolio of slots that have jackpots or big pay outs. Feel free to take a look at the games on offer for more details about how and where to play the casino titles.

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